About Us

We are here to set the record straight on the loss of the relationship between the record buyer, the label, and the bands. Do not allow yourself to feel disconnected from the music, the people who make it, and the people you purchase it from. In the music world we are all family with common interests, just as we are here at La Escalera. We started as friends who became family and decided to move forward on sharing our music with like minds. Remember one thing, we can all do our part. ~ La Escalera is not a group or a faction. It’s not a band or a label. It’s a movement. It’s up to you.

Origin of La Escalera Records by Will Castro:

In April 2011, I started a label with my homeboy Ezequiel “Ziggy” Pelayo, and here’s the story behind it…

Around 2009 I met Ziggy at random shows and I had printed some shirts for his band Breaker Breaker One Niner, and you know, it was casual. One day, I was at a stoplight and he pulls next to me and says “Que Onda, Let’s go on tour”. and I was like, “Fuck it.” So I went on a week long tour with his other band, Save Amos, up the coast to Seattle and back. I ended up doing two tours with Save Amos on the west coast that year.

Now, Ziggy and Breaker had established these contacts and networks of bands up and down the coast and they called their homie network “La Escalera” – like minded artists striving to uplift their own musical communities and grow their existing communities with others around the west coast and throughout the country, by touring and helping others bands on tour coming through San Diego. I was introduced to those bands and individuals through those early tours – Success, Bastards Of Young, Fools Rush, etc. The list is long.

So after the second tour with Save Amos, I got home and collected my thoughts about all the awesome people I’d met and the awesome music that was happening up and down the coast. Next time I saw Ziggy I was like, “Let’s put some records out, and there was no other choice for label name than “La Escalera Records.” It was an ode to the many bands I’d met and that Ziggy had worked with for years. In April 2011 we released the first vinyl 7″ record – Success / Bastards of Young – Split 7″.

Our release count continues to grow. Some were co-releases with other labels, some co-releases with bands, others were on our own. All of them have been a part of what makes this label – the trials and tribulations, the mistakes made – it is all a part of building this thing up to what it is today. La Escalera is and will always be a movement, a community of like minded individuals trying to help each other any way we can, just like it was before my time. La Escalera is a record label only second to that.